Srinath and I flew dual with Steve today on 737GM. It is a Cessna 172 modified with STOL capability and 40 degrees of flaps. The goal for today is to get us a feel for the aircraft especially with full flaps so we can fly that whenever 906MD was unavailable.

As we took off on a left downwind departure, the guy who was just ahead of us encountered a bird strike and declared an emergency (“Mayday”) and wanted to return for a precautionary landing. Srinath overflew Tracy at which point he practiced slow flight with full flaps and a couple of stalls in the landing configuration. He then proceeded to New Jerusalem to practice landings with full 40 degrees of flaps. The last two landings were short approaches. It was incredible how slowly and with a tight turn we could approach for short landing.

We taxied back to Rwy 30 at New J, watched a plane do a couple of touch and go before Srinath and I switched on the left seat. I had a chance to the same air work that Srinath did previously, then we headed back to Livermore.

As we radioed the tower over altamont, we were asked to follow a Mooney and then tower asked us to join downwind midfield for a landing.We later figured out this was because there was somebody behind us on an ILS approach. This was very unusual and it took me a while to regain my situational awareness. Essentially we turned north after crossing the altamont, west and then south towards midfield. Then turned east for right downwind pattern landing.